The battle has been referred to as the "Typhoon of Steel" in English, and tetsu no ame ("rain of steel") or tetsu no bōfū ("violent wind of steel") in Japanese. The nicknames refer to the ferocity of the fighting, the intensity of gunfire involved, and sheer numbers of Allied ships and armored vehicles that assaulted the island. The battle has one of the highest number of casualties of any World War Two engagement: the Japanese lost over 100,000 troops, and the Allies (mostly United States) suffered more than 50,000 casualties, with over 12,000 killed in action. Hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed, wounded or attempted suicide. Approximately one-fourth of the civilian population died due to the invasion. The Tenth Army had five Army Divisions, the 7th, 27th, 77th, 81st, and 96th; and two Marine Divisions, the 1st and 6th fought on the island while the 2nd remained as an amphibious reserve and was never brought ashore. All these divisions were supported by naval, amphibious, and tactical air forces.

They expected the Americans to land six to ten divisions against the Japanese garrison of two and a half divisions. The staff calculated that superior quality and numbers of weapons gave each U.S. division five or six times the firepower of a Japanese division. To this would be added the Americans' abundant naval and air firepower.

Most of the air-to-air fighters and the small dive bombers and strike aircraft were U.S. Navy carrier-based airplanes. The Japanese had used kamikaze tactics since the Battle of Leyte Gulf, but for the first time, they became a major part of the defense. Between the American landing on April 1 and May 25, seven major kamikaze attacks were attempted, involving more than 1,500 planes. The total strength of the Allied fleet at Okinawa was 1,600 ships, including 40 aircraft carriers, 18 battleships, 32 cruisers and 200 destroyers. The U.S. Navy sustained greater casualties in this operation than in any other battle of the war.

Although Allied land forces were entirely composed of U.S. units, the British Pacific Fleet (BPF; known to the U.S. Navy as Task Force 57) provided about a quarter of Allied naval air power (450 planes). It comprised many ships, including 50 warships of which 17 were aircraft carriers, but the British armoured decks meant that fewer planes could be carried in a single aircraft carrier, although the carriers were more resilient to kamikaze strikes. Although all the aircraft carriers were provided by the UK, the carrier group was a combined British Commonwealth fleet with British, Canadian, New Zealand and Australian ships and personnel. Their mission was to neutralize Japanese airfields in the Sakishima Islands and provide air cover against Japanese kamikaze attacks.

The British Pacific Fleet (BPF) was assigned the task of neutralizing the Japanese airfields in the Sakishima Islands, which it did successfully from March 26 until April 10. On April 10, its attention was shifted to airfields on northern Formosa. The force withdrew to San Pedro Bay on April 23. Although by then a commonplace event for the U.S. Navy, this was the longest time that a Royal Naval fleet of that size had been maintained at sea.
Template:Quote box

On May 1, BPF returned to action, subduing the airfields as before, this time with naval bombardment as well as aircraft. Several kamikaze attacks caused significant damage, but since the British used armored flight decks on their aircraft carriers, they only experienced a brief interruption to their force's objective.[4]

In the three-month battle for Okinawa, the Japanese flew 1,900 kamikaze missions, sinking dozens of Allied ships and killing more than 5,000 U.S. sailors at the cost of 1,465 expended kamikaze planes (2,200 other Japanese and 763 U.S. aircraft were also destroyed, including during the land battle). The ships lost were smaller vessels, particularly the destroyers of the radar pickets, as well as destroyer escorts and landing ships. While no major Allied warship was lost, several fleet carriers were severely damaged. Land-based motorboats were also used in the Japanese suicide attacks.

The protracted length of the campaign under stressful conditions forced AdmiralChester W. Nimitz to take the unprecedented step of relieving the principal naval commanders to rest and recuperate. Following the practice of changing the fleet designation with the change of commanders, U.S. naval forces began the campaign as the U.S. Fifth Fleet under Admiral Raymond Spruance, but ended it as the U.S. Third Fleet under Admiral William Halsey.

Operation Ten-Go (Ten-gō sakusen) was the attempted attack by a strike force of Japanese surface vessels led by the battleship Yamato, commanded by Admiral Seiichi Itō. This small task force had been ordered to fight through enemy naval forces, then beach themselves and fight from shore using their guns as artillery and crewmen as naval infantry. The Yamato and other vessels in Operation Ten-Go were spotted by submarines shortly after leaving Japanese home waters, and were attacked by U.S. carrier aircraft.

Under attack from more than 300 aircraft over a two day span, the world's largest battleship sank on April 7, 1945, long before she could reach Okinawa. U.S. torpedo bombers were instructed to only aim for one side to prevent effective counter flooding by the battleship's crew, and hitting preferably the bow or stern, where armor was believed to be the thinnest. Of the Yamato's screening force, the light cruiserYahagi, and four out of the eight destroyers were also sunk. In all, the Imperial Japanese Navy lost some 3,700 sailors, including Itō, at the cost of only ten U.S. aircraft and 12 airmen.

The land battle took place over about 87 days beginning April 1, 1945.

The first Americans ashore were soldiers of the 77th Infantry Division, who landed in the Kerama Islands (Kerama Retto), 15 miles (24 km) west of Okinawa on March 26, 1945. Subsidiary landings followed, and the Kerama group was secured over the next five days. In these preliminary operations, the 77th Infantry Division suffered 31 dead and 81 wounded, while Japanese dead and captured numbered over 650. The operation provided a protected anchorage for the fleet and eliminated the threat from suicide boats.

Tenth Army swept across the south-central part of the island with relative ease by World War II standards, capturing the Kadena and the Yomitanairbases. In the light of the weak opposition, General Buckner decided to proceed immediately with Phase II of his plan—the seizure of northern Okinawa. The 6th Marine Division headed up the Ishikawa Isthmus. The land was mountainous and wooded, with the Japanese defenses concentrated on Yae-Take, a twisted mass of rocky ridges and ravines on the Motobu Peninsula. There was heavy fighting before the Marines finally cleared the peninsula on April 18.

Meanwhile, the 77th Infantry Division assaulted Ie Shima, a small island off the western end of the peninsula, on April 16. In addition to conventional hazards, the 77th Infantry Division encountered suicide bombers, and even Japanese women armed with spears. There was heavy fighting before Ie Shima was declared secured on April 21 and became another air base for operations against Japan.

While the Marines cleared northern Okinawa, XXIV Corps wheeled south across the narrow waist of Okinawa. The 7th and 96th Infantry Divisions encountered fierce resistance from Japanese troops holding fortified positions on high ground and engaged in desperate hand to hand combat in west-central Okinawa along Cactus Ridge, about five miles (8 km) northwest of Shuri. By the night of April 8 the XXIV Corps had cleared these and several other strongly fortified positions. They suffered over 1,500 battle casualties in the process, while killing or capturing about 4,500 Japanese, yet the battle had only just begun, for it was now realized they were merely outposts guarding the Shuri Line.

The next American objective was Kakazu Ridge, two hills with a connecting saddle that formed part of Shuri's outer defenses. The Japanese had prepared their positions well and fought tenaciously. Fighting was fierce. Japanese soldiers hid in fortified caves armed with hidden machine guns and explosives; American forces often lost many men before clearing the Japanese out from each cave or other hiding place. The Japanese would send the Okinawans at gunpoint out to acquire water and supplies for them, which induced casualties among civilians. The American advance was inexorable but resulted in massive casualties sustained by both sides.

As the American assault against Kakazu Ridge stalled, General Ushijima, influenced by General Chō, decided to take the offensive. On the evening of April 12 32nd Army attacked American positions across the entire front. The Japanese attack was heavy, sustained, and well organized. After fierce close combat the attackers retreated, only to repeat their offensive the following night. A final assault on April 14 was again repulsed. The entire effort led 32nd Army's staff to conclude that the Americans were vulnerable to night infiltration, but that their superior firepower made any offensive Japanese troop concentrations extremely dangerous, and they reverted to their defensive strategy.

The 27th Infantry Division, which had landed on April 9 took over on the right, along the west coast of Okinawa. General Hodge now had three divisions in the line, with the 96th in the middle, and the 7th on the east, with each division holding a front of only about a mile and half.

Hodge launched a new offensive of April 19 with a barrage of 324 guns, the largest ever in the Pacific Ocean Theater. Battleships, cruisers, and destroyers joined the bombardment, which was followed by 650 Navy and Marine planes attacking the enemy positions with napalm, rockets, bombs, and machine guns. The Japanese defenses were sited on reverse slopes, where the defenders waited out the artillery barrage and aerial attack in relative safety, emerging from the caves to rain mortar rounds and grenades upon the Americans advancing up the forward slope.

A tank assault on Kakazu Ridge, launched without sufficient infantry support in the hope of a breakthrough, failed with the loss of 22 tanks. Although flame tanks cleared many cave defenses, there was no breakthrough, and the XXIV Corps lost 720 killed, wounded or missing. The losses might have been greater, except for the fact that the Japanese had practically all of their infantry reserves tied up farther south, held there by another feint off the Minatoga beaches by the 2nd Marine Division that coincided with the attack.

At the end of April, the 1st Marine Division relieved the 27th Infantry Division, and the 77th Infantry Division relieved the 7th. When the 6th Marine Division arrived, III Amphibious Corps took over the right flank and Tenth Army assumed control of the battle.

On May 4 the 32nd Army launched another counteroffensive. This time Ushijima attempted to make amphibious assaults on the coasts behind American lines. To support his offensive, the Japanese artillery moved into the open. By doing so they were able to fire 13,000 rounds in support but American counter-battery fire destroyed 19 guns on May 4 and 40 more over the next two days. The attack was a complete failure.

Buckner launched another American attack on May 11. Ten days of fierce fighting followed. On May 13 troops of the 96th Infantry Division and 763d Tank Battalion captured Conical Hill. Rising 476 feet (145 m) above the Yonabaru coastal plain, this feature was the eastern anchor of the main Japanese defenses and was defended by about 1,000 Japanese. Meanwhile, on the opposite coast, the 6th Marine Division fought for "Sugar Loaf Hill". The capture of these two key positions exposed the Japanese around Shuri on both sides. Buckner hoped to envelop Shuri and trap the main Japanese defending force.

By the end of May monsoon rains which turned contested slopes and roads into a morass exacerbated both the tactical and medical situations. The ground advance began to resemble a World War Ibattlefield as troops became mired in mud and flooded roads greatly inhibited evacuation of wounded to the rear. Troops lived on a field sodden by rain, part garbage dump and part graveyard. Unburied Japanese bodies decayed, sank in the mud, and became part of a noxious stew. Anyone sliding down the greasy slopes could easily find their pockets full of maggots at the end of the journey.[5]

On May 29, Major General Pedro del Valle, commanding the 1st Marine Division, ordered Company A, 1st Battalion, 5th Marines to capture Shuri Castle. Seizure of the castle represented both strategic and psychological blows for the Japanese and was a milestone in the campaign. Del Valle was awarded a Distinguished Service Medal for his leadership in the fight and the subsequent occupation and reorganization of Okinawa. However the castle was outside the 1st Marine Division's zone, and only frantic efforts by the commander and staff of the 77th Infantry Division prevented the Marines from being subjected to an American air strike and artillery bombardment.

Either by design or the "fog of war", Buckner did not detect the Japanese general retreat to their second line of defense in the Kiyan Peninsula, which ultimately led to the greatest slaughter on Okinawa in the latter stages of the battle, including the deaths of thousands of civilians.

On June 4, only some 30,000 poorly-armed (most of their heavy and even personal weapons lost during the withdrawal) soldiers were left in the 32d Army, including few (20%) surviving trained combat troops. In addition, there were 9,000 IJN troops supported by 1,100 militia holed-up at the fortified area of the Okinawa Naval Base Force in the Oroku Peninsula.

Ushijima and Chō committed suicide by seppuku in their command headquarters on Hill 89 in the closing hours of the battle. Colonel Yahara had asked Ushijima for permission to commit suicide, but the general refused his request, saying, "If you die there will be no one left who knows the truth about the battle of Okinawa. Bear the temporary shame but endure it. This is an order from your army Commander."[6] Yahara was the most senior officer to have survived the battle on the island, and he later authored a book entitled The Battle for Okinawa.

U.S. losses were over 48,000 casualties, of whom over 12,000 were killed or missing—over twice the number of casualties as at Iwo Jima and Guadalcanal combined. Making the battle the bloodiest battle U.S. forces experienced in the Pacific war, and the second bloodiest in World War II, only exceeded by the Battle of the Bulge.[7][8][9]Several thousand servicemen who died indirectly (from wounds and other causes) at a later date are not included in the total. One of the most famous U.S. casualties was the war correspondentErnie Pyle, who was killed by Japanese machine gun fire on Ie Shima.[10] U.S. forces suffered their highest ever casualty rate for combat stress reaction during the entire battle, at 48%, with some 14,000 soldiers retired due to nervous breakdown. The U.S. Navy's dead exceeded its wounded with 4,907 killed and 4,874 wounded, primarily from kamikaze attacks.

General Buckner's decision to attack the Japanese defenses head-on, although proving to be extremely costly in U.S. lives, was ultimately successful. Just four days from the closing of the campaign, General Buckner was killed by Japanese artillery fire while inspecting his troops at the front line. He was the highest-ranking U.S. officer to be killed by enemy fire during the war. The day after, a second general, Brigadier GeneralClaudius M. Easley, was killed by machine gun fire.

At sea 368 Allied ships (including 120 amphibious craft) were damaged while another 36, including 15 amphibious ships and 12 destroyers were sunk during the Okinawa campaign. In the end more than 4,900 officers and men of the Navy lost their lives, largely as a result of Japanese kamikazes.[11] The Japanese lost 16 ships sunk, including the enormous battleship Yamato.

On land the U.S. forces lost at least 225 tanks and many LVTs destroyed while eliminating 27 Japanese tanks and 743 artillery pieces (including mortars, anti-tank guns, and anti-aircraft guns), some of them knocked-out by the naval and air bombardments.

A group of Japanese prisoners who preferred surrender to suicide wait to be questioned

By one count, there were about 107,000 Japanese combatants killed and 7,400 captured. Some of the soldiers committed seppuku or simply blew themselves up with hand grenades. In addition, about 20,000 were sealed in their caves alive.[12]

This was also the first battle in the war in which surrendering Japanese were made into POWs by the thousands. Many of the Japanese prisoners were native Okinawans who had been impressed into the Army shortly before the battle and were less imbued with the Japanese Army's no-surrender doctrine.[13] When the American forces occupied the island, the Japanese took Okinawan clothing to avoid capture and the Okinawans came to the Americans' aid by offering a simple way to detect Japanese in hiding. The Okinawan language differs greatly from the Japanese language; with Americans at their sides, Okinawans would give directions to people in the local language, and those who did not understand were considered Japanese in hiding who were then captured.

Overcoming the civilian resistance on Okinawa was aided by propagandaleaflets, one of which is being read by a prisoner awaiting transport

At some battles, such as at Iwo Jima, there had been no civilians involved, but Okinawa had a large indigenous civilian population and, according to various estimates, somewhere between 1/10 and 1/3 of them died during the battle.[5] Okinawan civilian losses in the campaign were estimated to be between 42,000 and 150,000 dead (more than 100,000 according to Okinawa Prefecture[14]). The U.S. Army figures for the campaign showed a total figure of 142,058 civilian casualties, including those who were pressed into service by the Japanese Imperial Army.[5]

In its history of the war, the Okinawa Prefectural Peace Memorial Museum[15] presents Okinawa as being caught in the fighting between America and Japan. During the 1945 battle, the Japanese Army showed indifference to Okinawa's defense and safety, and the Japanese soldiers used civilians as human shields against the Americans. Japanese military confiscated food from the Okinawans and executed those who hid it, leading to a mass starvation among the population, and forced civilians out of their shelters. Japanese soldiers also killed about 1,000 Okinawans who still spoke a different local dialect in order to suppress spying.[16] The museum writes that "some were blown apart by shells, some finding themselves in a hopeless situation were driven to suicide, some died of starvation, some succumbed to malaria, while other fell victim to the retreating Japanese troops."[15] Soldiers on both sides also raped Okinawan civilians and rape by the Japanese troops "became common" in June after it became clear that the Japanese Army had been defeated.[3][17]

With the impending victory of American troops, civilians often committed mass suicide, urged on by the fanatical Japanese soldiers who told locals that victorious American soldiers would go on a rampage of killing and raping. Ryukyu Shimpo, one of the two major Okinawan newspapers, wrote in 2007: "There are many Okinawans who have testified that the Japanese Army directed them to commit suicide. There are also people who have testified that they were handed grenades by Japanese soldiers (to blow themselves up)."[18] Some of the civilians, having been induced by Japanese propaganda to believe that U.S. soldiers were barbarians who committed horrible atrocities, killed their families and themselves to avoid capture. Some of them threw themselves and their family members from the cliffs where the Peace Museum now resides.

However, despite being told by the Japanese military that they would suffer rape, torture and murder at the hands of the Americans, Okinawans "were often surprised at the comparatively humane treatment they received from the American enemy."[19][20] According to Islands of Discontent: Okinawan Responses to Japanese and American Power by Mark Selden, the Americans "did not pursue a policy of torture, rape, and murder of civilians as Japanese military officials had warned."[21] A Japanese AmericanMilitary Intelligence Service[22] combat translator with the U.S. military, Teruto "Terry" Tsubota, convinced hundreds of civilians to not kill themselves and thus saved their lives.[23]

Ninety percent of the buildings on the island were completely destroyed, and the lush tropical landscape was turned into "a vast field of mud, lead, decay and maggots".[24]

The military value of Okinawa "exceeded all hope". Okinawa provided a fleet anchorage, troop staging areas, and airfields in close proximity to Japan. After the battle, the U.S. cleared the surrounding waters of mines in Operation Zebra, occupied Okinawa, and set up the United States Civil Administration of the Ryukyu Islands, a form of military government.[25] Significant U.S. forces remain garrisoned there, and Kadena remains the largest U.S. air base in Asia.

"...because the Japanese on Okinawa, including native Okinawans, were so fierce in their defense (even when cut off, and without supplies), and because casualties were so appalling, many American strategists looked for an alternative means to subdue mainland Japan, other than a direct invasion. This means presented itself, with the advent of atomic bombs, which worked admirably in convincing the Japanese to sue for peace, without American casualties. Ironically, the American conventional fire-bombing of major Japanese cities (which had been going on for months before Okinawa) was far more effective at killing civilians than the atomic bombs and, had the Americans simply continued, or expanded this, the Japanese would likely have surrendered anyway. Nevertheless, the bombs were a powerful symbolic display of American power, and the Japanese capitulated, obviating the need for an invasion of the home islands."

In 1945, Winston Churchill called the battle "among the most intense and famous in military history."

Cornerstone of Peace Memorial with names of all military and civilians from all countries who died in the Battle of Okinawa

In 1995, the Okinawa government erected a memorial named Cornerstone of Peace in Mabuni, the site of the last fighting in southeastern Okinawa.[26] The memorial lists all the known names of those who died in the battle, civilian and military, Japanese and foreign. As of June 2008 it contains 240,734 names.[27]

There is ongoing major disagreement between Okinawa's local government and Japan's national government over the role of the Japanese military in civilian mass suicides during the battle. In March 2007, the national Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) advised textbook publishers to reword descriptions that the embattled Imperial Japanese Army forced civilians to kill themselves in the war so they would not be taken prisoner by the U.S. military. MEXT preferred descriptions that just say that civilians received hand grenades from the Japanese military.

This move sparked widespread protests among the Okinawans. In June 2007, the Okinawa Prefectoral Assembly adopted a resolution stating, "We strongly call on the (national) government to retract the instruction and to immediately restore the description in the textbooks so the truth of the Battle of Okinawa will be handed down correctly and a tragic war will never happen again."[28]

On September 29, 2007, about 110,000 people held the biggest political rally in the history of Okinawa to demand that MEXT retract its order to textbook publishers on revising the account of the civilian suicides. The resolution stated: "It is an undeniable fact that the 'multiple suicides' would not have occurred without the involvement of the Japanese military and any deletion of or revision to (the descriptions) is a denial and distortion of the many testimonies by those people who survived the incidents."[29]

On December 26, 2007, MEXT partially admitted the role of the Japanese military in civilian mass suicides.[30]
The ministry's Textbook Authorization Council allowed the publishers to reinstate the reference that civilians "were forced into mass suicides by the Japanese military," on condition it is placed in sufficient context. "It can be said that from the viewpoint of the (Okinawa residents), they were forced into the mass suicides," the council report stated.[31] That was, however, not enough for the survivors who said it is important for children today to know what really happened.[32]

Nobel Prize winning author Kenzaburō Ōe has written a booklet which states that the mass suicide order was given by the military during the battle.[33] He was sued by the revisionists, including a wartime commander during the battle, who disputed this and wanted to stop publication of the booklet. At a court hearing on November 9, 2007, Ōe testified: "Mass suicides were forced on Okinawa islanders under Japan's hierarchical social structure that ran through the state of Japan, the Japanese armed forces and local garrisons."[34] On March 28, 2008, the Osaka Prefecture Court ruled in favor of Ōe stating, "It can be said the military was deeply involved in the mass suicides." The court recognized the military's involvement in the mass suicides and murder-suicides, citing the testimony about the distribution of grenades for suicide by soldiers and the fact that mass suicides were not recorded on islands where the military was not stationed.[35]